The problems associated with disasters and accidents are receiving an ever-increasing amount of public attention. Much of this is connected with the way in which society has developed into a communication society. The media seize on such events, thereby helping to inform the population that a disaster and accident has occurred. Society, moreover, has become much more complex, and in most cases people are involved in or directly or indirectly affected by a disaster or accident. People may experience disasters or accidents in their homes, at their place or work, or when travelling by various forms of transport. Situations may also arise in towns, in densely built-up areas, on roads, in transport systems as well as in buildings, in factory works, etc. Transport of goods, the use of aircraft, busses and trains may also result in undesirable events. Weather conditions such as, for example, tornadoes, floods, rain, lightning, pollution, etc. are also a cause of disasters and accidents. In addition to this, epidemics or other diseases may occur involving one or more people. All of these situations give grounds for providing timely and necessary information to those involved, whether they be individuals in the midst of the disaster or accident, the relief team on the way to a situation or located on the spot or within the accident or disaster area, or persons or groups such as families, businesses, organisations, etc. requiring or needing information. Exercise-type situations may also be involved or situations where for social reasons the necessary planning must be carried out in advance of a likely disaster or accident, where there is a need to supervise and control the flow of information.
A special characteristic of disasters and accidents is to be able to ensure and safeguard the need for information by means of telecommunication. In this context, telecommunication refers to fixed telephony and communication by means of terminals such as mobile telephones and/or PDA's. When a disaster or accident goes through its cycle from start to finish, a great need is created for information to and between the parties involved, as well as incoming and outgoing communication.
Furthermore, problems often arise with the communication infrastructure, such as, for example, when communication exchanges and switches are knocked out or literally overwhelmed by the fast and uncontrolled build-up of requests for new network connections of data communication and/or calls, together with implementation of ongoing data exchanges and calls. There is a need to control and optimise message exchange via several switches in a network in situations involving undesirable events as described above.
Patents exist involving various aspects of communication supervision and control during an event such as an accident or disaster, where there is a wish to control and supervise the communication via a switch.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,169,894 describes how geographically determined information can be passed to a mobile telephone. The patent describes a broadcasting method, “outbound broadcasting”, where the network capacity can be maximised. The method can temporarily overrule the mobile telephone, provided the mobile (the user) has made himself available to the service.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,694,132 describes a method for “outbound broadcasting” which is geographically determined, where one communicates via a fixed and mobile telephony network. Databases, graphic information and text/voice messages form the basis for actions. The telephone operator performs the broadcasting. Broadcasting is primarily operated by the area's dialing code (i.e. focussed on fixed telephony).
Each of the patents and their articles discussed above are hereby included in this patent application as references.
A significant drawback of these patents is that they fail to arrange for an optimal message exchange via one or more switches by controlling and optimising the communication load via the selected switches.
The trouble with today's solutions is that on account of the development or scope of the disaster or accident, problems may be encountered in alerting a selected population group via a fixed and/or mobile telephony network within the geographical areas affected by the situation.
The capacity of the telephony infrastructure in the various countries such as, for example, Norway and internationally is developed according to population density and anticipated communication requirements. For example, a small municipality with a population of 5-6000 inhabitants seldom has the capacity to handle more than 2-300 simultaneous calls. A warning that does not deal with scaling in relation to receiving capacity can thereby completely overload the network, resulting in unpredictable consequences such as, for example, where critical outgoing telephone traffic cannot get through.
Thus a highly specific and obvious need exists to take care of, control and optimise the communication via a switch related to a disaster or accident.
The present invention takes care of this function.